There are numerous software tools commercially available that allow a user to make adjustments to digital images. Using software of this type, a user can process an uploaded image from a digital camera or a print or slide scanner to modify a range of image characteristics including color balance, brightness, contrast, sharpness, and saturation, as well as to perform editing functions such as cropping, enlargement, and rotation.
While image processing utilities such as Adobe Photoshop from Adobe Systems Incorporated provide capable tools for adjusting image appearance, there are a number of problems that confront the casual user. Some adjustments, such as for image brightness, are straightforward and have little or no impact on other characteristics of the rendered image. Spectral characteristics such as color balance, on the other hand, can be difficult to adjust properly and it can be relatively easy for the inexperienced user to get unsatisfactory results. Often, for example, attempts to correct for a previous adjustment do not achieve the results anticipated and can cause confusion and frustration to the end user.
Further difficulties arise from variation between images taken under diverse conditions. Images taken underwater, for example, can have distinctly different color balance characteristics from those taken in air, as described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 9,087,385 to Fredlund et al.
Given the difficulties relating to achieving adjustment of an image so that it is both realistic and pleasing to the eye, it can be seen that there is a need for tools that allow the casual user to improve the quality of camera or scanned images without requiring extensive training or expertise in image manipulation techniques.